The victim is 35 years old and his name has not yet been released. He was reportedly biking in Brooklyn past Jay and Tillary streets when a truck hit him when both were making a right turn. The man suffered a serious head injury and was taken to New York Methodist Hospital in critical condition.

The man was pinned under the truck, witnesses stated. The driver of the truck was not injured and remained at the scene.

According to community activist Joanna Oltman Smith, there are far too many tractor trailers driving on crowded Brooklyn streets and leaving people on bikes vulnerable to injury and death.

Our View

There are 500,000 truck accidents in the US each year that result in personal injury and death. The most common reasons are driver fatigue and driver inattention. Sometimes trucking companies are pushing their drivers too hard, causing the truckers to drive too much and to be distracted. Other times, truckers are simply not paying attention to what they are doing, possibly looking at a cell phone or otherwise distracted.

What all commercial truckers need to remember is that their highest responsibility is to the general public. Their rigs weigh up to 80,000 pounds and cause devastating and deadly injuries when they are careless and reckless.

In the above case, it was the truck driver’s job to be aware of what was going on around his rig. His side mirror almost certainly showed that the biker was there, but he probably did not see him.

This was an avoidable tragedy that has left a man with life long or possibly terminal injuries.